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HINDRANCES 
TO HAPPINESS 



HINDRANCES 

TO 

HAPPINESS 



BY 

ADDISON MOORE 

Author of "The Heir of the Ages" 




HODDER AND STOUGHTON 

NEW YORK 

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



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Copyright, 1911, 
By George H. Doran Company 



CI.A2S3873 



To 

THE REV. CHARLES F. AKED, D.D. 

the most considerate of colleagues and 
the kindest of friends 



FOREWORD 

rr^HESE addresses were delivered on sue- 
•^ cessive Sunday mornings to the Bible 
Class of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, New 
York. They have as their keynote the word 
" Adjustment," and deal with Happiness from 
the view point of Christian Ethics. They are 
offered to a larger public not only because mem- 
bers of the Bible Class demanded them in per- 
manent form, but also because of the favorable 
reception accorded the preceding volume of ad- 
dresses entitled " The Heir of the Ages and His 
Inheritances," and the many requests from its 
readers for the publication of a new series. The 
present series like the former is intended to be 
suggestive and not at all exhaustive of the topics 
discussed, the aim being to stimulate thought and 
awaken inquiry along the lines indicated, with 
special attention to the needs of young men. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

I. Ignorance ii 

II. Impatience 20 

III. Improvidence 30 

IV. Debt 39 

V. Poverty 49 

VI. Pessimism 59 

VII. Lying 68 

VIII. Worry 78 

IX. Selfishness 88 



I 

IGNORANCE 

A MODERN essayist has pointed out the 
fact that the advisability of allowing a 
■ lamp-post to remain or to be removed 
from a street corner depends entirely upon the 
nature and philosophy of light. There are many 
who smile at the assertion and state that such 
a question is to be decided on more practical 
and utilitarian grounds. But when the lamp- 
post has been thrown down by the mob which has 
no patience with the philosopher and his disqui- 
sition on the nature of light, then in the dark- 
ness of the night those who love darkness rather 
than light because their deeds are evil, bear wit- 
ness by the disasters they encompass, to the prac- 
tical value of the nature and philosophy of light. 

In like manner a discussion about the phi- 
losophy of happiness may seem less important 
than a statement concerning the acquisition of 
certain possessions which are supposed to pro- 
duce happiness. But when such possessions are 



12 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

seen to produce unhappiness in many instances, 
and when even those whom the world counts 
most fortunate in the matter of possessions are 
frequently found among the discontented and the 
unsatisfied, it becomes possible to believe that 
some acquaintance at least with the law that 
underlies the successful pursuit of happiness may 
be essential to its attainment. 

That law may be briefly stated as an adjust- 
ment of oneself to the existing universe; to its 
existence, that is, as a reality and as a working 
hypothesis. 

Which means in simpler language, that happi- 
ness depends upon keeping one's ideals up to date. 

If Adam, for instance, was pleased with the 
light that showed him the beauties of nature, 
and found contentment in the day which wit- 
nessed the dawning of his consciousness, it is 
easy to conceive that as the sun declined and 
darkness brooded over the earth, his happiness 
would disappear with the sinking sun. As ex- 
perience increased when days succeeded nights, 
it is also conceivable that his happiness in the 
sunshine would not be broken with the night, 
for he would surely and safely rest in the as- 
surance of a coming dawn. 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 13 

When Aristotle formulated his philosophy of 
happiness he founded it upon his belief that the 
universe was static. To him the world was cen- 
ter and sun of every sphere, and the work 
of creation was at rest. All that life held for 
mankind they already possessed as a gift from 
the gods. 

Under such a philosophy happiness consists 
in finding satisfaction in the abundance of one's 
possessions, and the lack of them was sufficient 
reason for sorrow. While the pursuit of riches, 
or of fame, or of knowledge was essential to 
their possession, the pursuit if it failed to gain 
the desired goal could afford no satisfaction. 

So that Aristotle's famous conclusion explains 
his entire system of thought as he says, " It is 
reasonable to suppose that wisdom is more 
pleasant to those who have mastered it, than to 
those who are yet seeking for it." 

Modern teaching is entirely opposite in its 
conclusions and was comprehensively stated by 
Bishop Butler when he said, " Knowledge is not 
our proper happiness; it is the gaining, not the 
having of it, which affords entertainment." 

Between these two statements lies the sea of 
uncertain currents and uncharted ways that sepa- 



14 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

rates the ancient from the modern continents of 
thought. 

There is a realm filled with the puppet life of 
those whose thought of God pictures Him as for- 
ever at rest and apart from His creation. He has 
made definite rules and given positive directions 
which if followed will win His favor. If you 
are good you will be happy; and if unhappiness 
clouds your sky it is an evidence of your own 
badness. So the friends of Job argued with him 
and besought him to acknowledge his sin and 
make his peace with the God whom evidently he 
had offended. 

Then, knowing himself to be innocent, and 
yet knowing himself to be unhappy, Job plunged 
into the sea of speculation and fought its billows 
of doubt until he could say, " I know that my 
Vindicator liveth ! " And with that saying he 
found himself on the shore of a new continent 
of thought and life. 

He adjusted himself to the universe as he 
believed it to exist in the mind of God, and his 
happiness was assured. 

It is a wonderful foregleam of the modern 
day which the author of the drama of Job saw 
in his long ago time, and that foregleam suf- 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 15 

fered many an eclipse before Copernicus added 
to the light of knowledge, and Augustine in- 
creased the knowledge of truth, and Bishop 
Butler taught us how to adjust our thinking to 
the realities of the modern age. 

Ancient and modern, however, when ap- 
plied to our thinking are terms that relate 
not to distance in time, but to differences 
in ideals. 

In the mountains of Kentucky a race of white 
people exists whose practices and principles are 
so far removed from those of the people who 
populate the rest of that enlightened State that 
the mountaineers have been aptly and pictur- 
esquely called " our contemporaneous ancestors." 
Their feuds and their opinions, so foreign to 
modern ways of life, frequently bring them into 
violent conflict with the authorities of a more 
orderly and law abiding society. In point of 
time they are contemporaneous with their fellow 
countrymen; but in point of thought they live 
in another age. 

In very much the same manner men may live 
to-day in an ancient world of thought about 
temporal and eternal values; still holding fast 
to ancient formulas and shaping conduct to 



i6 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

conform to an ancient and outgrown philosophy 
of life. 

Men still believe that to have is better than 
to pursue and that possessions will produce hap- 
piness. Consequently they argue that the end 
justifies the means. To get knowledge by short 
cut methods and win scholastic honors by dis- 
honorable means; to secure public office by 
political chicanery ; to grow rich by " graft " ; 
these and their equivalent practices in the pur- 
suit of professional and commercial advantage 
are methods sanctioned by long and faithful al- 
legiance to an ancient philosophy which the world 
has outgrown along with its one time belief in 
the Ptolemaic astronomy. 

The young man of to-day who would find hap- 
piness must adjust himself to the universe as he 
believes it to exist in the mind of God. To us 
of to-day the universe is never at rest; never, as 
Augustine imagined it to be, a place static at all ; 
but a system dynamic, alive with endless possi- 
bilities of progress toward higher forms of ex- 
pression. We have to breathe an atmosphere 
freed from the deadening fumes of superstition, 
but charged with the exhilaration of liberty and 
of truth. 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 17 

We must relate ourselves to the philosophy 
which best interprets the modern world; a world 
sensitive to human unhappiness since the heart 
of the Nazarene has throbbed in sympathy with 
human sorrow; and a world seeking to relieve 
that sorrow, since He has shown how even sor- 
row may be turned into joy. 

We are fellow laborers in a common cause 
whose name is the Brotherhood of Man. The 
Elder Brother guides us through the sea of be- 
wildering experience to the continent of a new 
world of thought and life. Its laws and its phil- 
osophy are the outgrowth of His golden rule, and 
our happiness in the modern world depends 
not at all upon the abundance of the things 
we possess, but altogether upon our adjust- 
ment to the highest truth we know. Such an 
adjustment is necessary if happiness is to be 
our pursuit. 

For the principal hindrance to happiness is the 
lack of right relationship to the universe as it 
exists in the thought of God. Such an adjust- 
ment calls for an open mind and a heart loyal 
to those high standards of conduct which beckon 
to courageous youth. 

The child cries for the moon and is unhappy 



i8 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

because he does not understand that until his 
eye has been trained and his sense of perspective 
developed he is out of adjustment with creation. 
The man who sighs for possessions and sins to 
get them and is not happy with possessions won, 
must learn the law of happiness and govern his 
conduct accordingly. 

This law when applied to the sphere of thought 
asks the student not to lull his mind to sleep by 
the repetition of ancient theories, but bids him 
test in the laboratory and in the shop and on the 
street the principles and precepts on which his 
hope of happiness is based. It asks the man of 
affairs to be sure that his promises and engage- 
ments are made with a sense of the eternal per- 
spective in his mind so that he will not cry for 
the moon. 

This law urges the importance of understand- 
ing that happiness is to be found in the sense of 
satisfaction that comes to him whose day's work 
has deprived no other life of its faith in justice 
and in love, but has contributed to the hearts of 
men something more than they possessed of faith 
in humanity and in God. 

The neglect of this philosophy hinders happi- 
ness. For " where ignorance is bliss 't is folly to 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 19 

be wise " is true only where evil is concerned ; 
and in the realm of better things the best that 
we can know is none too good a standard by 
which to measure our progress toward the goal 
we seek. 



II 

IMPATIENCE 

"T T^S*^^ makes waste" and "the more 

^^■fl haste the less speed " are proverbs 

■" ^" that embody the wisdom of the past 

in regard to the relation of impatience to 

happiness. 

The eagerness that prompts the restive spirit 
to give slight heed to present duty in order that 
prospective pleasure may be the sooner enjoyed 
is a sign of ignorance concerning the fact that 
impatience is a hindrance to happiness, for 

" What are the past and future joys ? 
The present is our own. 
And he is wise who best employs 
The passing hour alone." 

Lives, like leaves on a tree, are no two of 
them alike in detail but they possess a common 
quality of development. For each life is made 
up of a series of circumstances over which the 
individual may have no control so far as their 
arrival is concerned, but upon which he may 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 21 

exert the art of the chemist and extract the good 
that will enrich his experience. 

Or life may be likened to a chain whose links 
must each be properly wrought and securely 
welded as the lengthening chain increases. 
Otherwise when the testing time comes the 
link that has been slighted in the making will, 
by so much as it is weak, diminish the value of 
whatever honest work has been put into all the 
rest of the chain. 

Childhood, youth, and maturity have each 
their distinctive strength to give to the making 
of happiness, and to ignore the opportunities that 
come to us at any one of these various stages of 
our career is to lessen our chance of happiness 
in the succeeding stage. 

Under the stimulus of a very praiseworthy 
ambition a boy at school may leave his books 
for the sake of beginning a business career. Im- 
patient for the gaining of fortune he may delib- 
erately surrender the advantages of a scholastic 
training in order that he may enter upon the 
training of the business world. The impetu- 
ousness that prompts the boy to enter upon the 
performance of duties that appeal to him as 
manly, before he has completed a course of in- 



^2 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

struction in the school, may be excused some- 
times on the ground of poverty; although many 
a lad in spite of irksome conditions has kept at 
his books and his business, too, especially in 
the cities where night schools are at his command. 

To surrender the advantages of a sound 
training in the fundamentals of knowledge is 
to go through life handicapped by ignorance, 
unprepared to compete with those who are 
better equipped to meet the demands of modern 
times. 

It means that as the boy becomes a man he 
will always have to be suspicious of that weak 
link in the chain; and many a time he will lose 
valuable opportimity for advancement, because 
while he has been compelled to patch up his 
weak link, some one who saw to it that the link 
was well made at the right time steps in ahead 
of him. 

And the loss occasioned to the schoolboy by 
his impatience with the books that keep him from 
the work of a man in the world of affairs can 
never really be made good to him, even by the 
degrees of commendation he may get later in 
life from the University of Hard Knocks, unless 
he watches persistently for any recurrence of his 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 23 

spirit of impatience while at the work he has 
undertaken. 

For as he passes from the age of boyhood to 
that of youth the fascination of his first wage- 
earning employment soon gives place to a sense 
of the drudgery of business and he begins to 
watch the clock. 

The mistake of leaving school for business at 
too early an age may be corrected partially, per- 
haps at no serious financial or social loss. But 
the mistake of giving way to impatience as evi- 
denced by the clock gazers is more serious. It 
shows that a second weak link is being allowed 
to pass muster, and instead of having only one 
weakness to nurse into strength the youth is in 
a fair way to have two. 

The individuals and corporations employing 
young men need all grades of ability to carry on 
their enterprises; but the one sort of youth for 
whom they have the least use, and with whom 
they most readily part, is the sort that is impa- 
tient under discipline and interested only in get- 
ting away from work in time to get to the ball 
game. 

Even when school days have not been un- 
necessarily shortened, and business duties do not 



24 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

find the youth a laggard at his tasks, impatience 
may assume another form; — a form peculiar to 
our age of rapid transit and sudden wealth. 

It is the form of impatience occasioned by slow 
advancement; an impatience which evidences 
itself in a frequent change from one employment 
to another, and to still another, and yet again to 
change from one task to another, till tasks on 
earth are done. 

Not infrequently it happens that earthly tasks 
get extremely difficult to find long before the 
search secures the sinecure desired. 

Certainly America is the land of boundless op- 
portunity, and there is no need to feel any undue 
anxiety about the ability of its poor to better 
their condition. Industry and thrift bring re- 
wards well worth the having to men who dig 
and build and carry on the task of the trades. 
The people who need sympathy are those who 
belong to the great army of clerks in shops and 
offices and banks. For them there is the utmost 
need that there shall be no weak links in the 
chain they are forging. It is only patient 
mastery of the work they have to do that will 
make them necessary to their employers. 

Otherwise, through half-hearted service and 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 25 

neglect of opportunities for self-improvement, 
they swell the number of those unhappy mem- 
bers of society whose tastes and habits of life 
have developed appetites whose demands they 
are unable to supply. While to such a condition 
has impatience with the tasks of school and of 
business brought many a man that in the days 
of maturity he has suffered the humiliation of 
seeing younger men preferred before him for 
positions of trust and responsibility. 

And yet it is not too late even when maturity 
has come for a man to learn the reason for his 
unhappiness and to profit thereby. 

Serious as the defects of the past may have 
been, happiness may yet be won. There are few 
lives so fortunate as to be surrounded in their 
fourth decade with the ideal conditions of which 
the second decade dreamed, and while there is 
life there is hope. 

To play the coward and refuse to see the 
natural end of life is the last refuge of the im- 
patient soul. To take the responsibility of de- 
ciding when one's life shall end is to go out 
into the darkness uncalled for and alone. In 
that unknown country into which the impatient 
man hurries his soul who knows what tasks 



26 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

awaits him or what dangers shall overtake him 
there? 

When God calls, then the time has come and 
His love will lead the soul to its eternal home. 
But before He calls, the business of a man is to 
make the best possible use of the circumstances 
in which he finds himself. If he has failed in the 
past that is all the greater reason for wresting 
victory from the very jaws of defeat before his 
days on earth are done. 

It is not an unusual thing to read in the 
daily press an account of some unfortunate 
suicide who ended his life in despair while for- 
tune was about to smile upon him. Truly it 
is the last folly of impatience that it drives a 
man to dishonorable death because he cannot 
wait to see the dawn of a better day. 

The remedy is not to be discovered by the 
boy, for he is too apt to glory in the disease; 
nor by the youth, for he must learn in the school 
of experience; but maturity has so often seen 
and felt the disastrous results of giving way to 
impatience as to be singularly unwise if the 
lesson of experience is ignored. 

" The longest lane has a turning," " it is al- 
ways darkest just before dawn," " every cloud 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 27 

has a silver lining," " look before you leap " ; these 
sententious bits of wisdom from our folk-lore are 
laden with the faith of men who have learned that 
the law of compensation was to be relied upon 
to help them bear many a trial of their patience 
while they plod along the appointed way. 

Happiness lies in the pursuit of the ideal and 
never in the possession of a definite reality. 
And the ideal is to be found in the adjustment 
of ourselves to God's order of life, which we 
call the universe. To find our place in it re- 
quires patient and persistent use of our facul- 
ties and not the impatient rejection of the con- 
ditions that surround us. 

The remedy for the impatience that hinders 
our happiness is not a pleasant medicine to take. 
It consists in a turning about of the object of 
impatience. It is to be impatient not with 
conditions, but with ourselves. 

The man whose impatience with conditions 
had caused him to change his place without bet- 
tering his lot in life has not only failed to im- 
prove himself, but has failed also to improve the 
conditions that irritate him. But the man who 
is impatient with himself because he has not 
been able as yet to adjust himself to life as he 



28 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

finds it accomplishes two things that make for 
happiness. He first discovers the measure of his 
own ability. Either he can or he cannot master 
the present situation. There are men who ought 
never to be in the employ of others. They are 
restive under authority and resentful under the 
direction of those to whom they know themselves 
to be superior in qualities of judgment and of 
will. Others there are who ought never to ven- 
ture upon any enterprise alone. They are lack- 
ing in qualities of initiative and control. They 
make splendid soldiers, but can never become 
captains of industry. 

That is the first accomplishment, the dis- 
covery of oneself and the directing of impatience 
against the self-will that leads to unhappiness, 
until wilfulness is changed into willingness to 
be adjusted to existing conditions. 

The second accomplishment is an achievement 
in the world of actions, as the first is an achieve- 
ment in the world of thought. It means that 
having discovered oneself, impatience is directed 
towards the methods that have led to defeat. It 
means that the link at which one is now work- 
ing will be finished as by " a workman that 
needeth not to be ashamed." 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 29 

Then if a new position is sought it will be 
with a recommendation for efficiency from the 
present employer; or if a new enterprise is to 
be undertaken it will be with the assurance of 
a success in small ventures that will form a 
basis for success in the large. 

Then even if disappointment should come, 
so far as the particular matter in hand is con- 
cerned, there will be no despair. For happi- 
ness is the reward of every life which pursues 
it along the road where ability measures up to 
opportunity, and where opportunities are cre- 
ated by the ability that is in excess of those 
that already exist. 



Ill 

IMPROVIDENCE 

TO prove that improvidence is a hindrance 
to happiness it is only necessary to name 
those among our acquaintances who are 
to-day in a position of dependence owing to their 
own lack of foresight and of thrift. 

Eternal vigilance is the price of that liberty 
without which happiness is impossible, for it 
is far distant from one whose bondage to cir- 
cumstances is due to his own carelessness and 
folly. 

Natural laws are stern creditors and demand 
their own with interest. The body is capable 
of supplying the strength essential for three 
score years and ten of contact with the work 
and play of life; but physical power wasted 
drains the body as surely as though the same 
power had been used to turn the wheels of 
some profitable enterprise. 

The heedlessness that burns the physical 
candle at both ends pays the penalty when the 



1 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 31 

light of life is flickering at what ought to be 
the full noontide blaze of its glory. 

The shortsightedness that runs the bodily 
machinery at too high pressure has only itself 
to blame when the physical forces break down 
at a time when they ought to be strong and re- 
liable. And happiness moves on out of reach 
while the body has to be laid aside to be patched 
up for the remainder of life's journey. 

Broadly speaking there are three ways in 
which improvidence makes itself manifest. The 
first is physical, and is displayed by the life that 
combines business with pleasure at a ratio more 
favorable to pleasure than to business. 

Late hours with midnight suppers; or the in- 
ordinate pursuit of any pastime, means that 
unusual effort must be made to whip the over- 
indulged body to its ordinary tasks. 

Because of physical excesses in food, drink, 
or emotion, bodily conditions are created that 
demand drugs and stimulants before the work 
of the day can be done, conditions that deplete 
the bodily forces faster than the life energy can 
build them up. 

The seeds of failure are sown early in life 
by heedlessness in regard to the laws of health, 



32 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

or by intemperate indulgence of legitimate ap- 
petites, until permanent injury has been done 
to bodily efficiency. Impaired digestion, weak- 
ened nerves, diseased organs, sluggish blood, 
bear witness to the improvidence which has 
thrown away the bodily strength so much 
needed in the pursuit of happiness. 

To keep the body fit for life's needs is a pre- 
requisite of happiness, for bodily weakness re- 
acts upon mental and moral efficiency without 
which the goal of happiness cannot be attained. 
Overindulged badness and overtaxed goodness 
both alike result in a debilitated life which by 
so much as it is debilitated falls so far short 
of the highest happiness. 

If it is argued that bodily weakness and 
physical ailments are not always a matter to 
cause unhappiness, as for instance, in the case 
of Prescott the historian, and Robert Louis Stev- 
enson the delectable teller of tales the world 
will never let die, and Herbert Spencer the inter- 
preter of English life to thoughtful men, it is 
also to be remembered that these men and others 
like them who fought against diseased bodies 
and suffered a penalty of pain for the pleasure 
which they found in work, knew the joy of fight- 



n 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 33 

ing a weakness for which they were not to 
blame. 

Not through their own improvidence did 
they suffer physical poverty; but by the care- 
ful expenditure of what little strength of body 
they possessed work was done that shames 
stronger men who fret and whine because they 
are not stronger still. 

The second manifestation of improvidence is 
found in the realm of our associates. William 
Morris said that fellowship is life, the lack of it 
is death, and to waste it is to impoverish one's 
soul. 

This saying has its tragic illustration in the 
experience of the late United States Senator 
Thomas C. Piatt of New York, whose friend- 
less old age serves as a commentary on the 
improvidence that wastes the wealth of the 
heart, or exhausts it in worthless association 
with men for ulterior motives alone. In his 
youth he must have had unusual powers for 
making friends or he never could have won his 
way to obtain the loyalties that were assuredly 
his for a season. But he wasted his affections 
on unworthy objects and dissipated them in un- 
fortunate pursuits, until he became bankrupt 
in the world of associates. 



34 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

Cicero wrote wisely long ago when he de- 
clared that "we must ever seek for men whom 
we can love and by whom we can be loved; 
for when affection and kindly feeling are done 
away with, all happiness is banished from life." 
And the Scripture statement of the wise man is 
that "he who would have friends must show 
himself to be friendly." We are also advised 
to fasten our friends to us with hooks of steel, 
for 

" He who has one enemy 

Will meet him everywhere; 
And he who has a hundred friends 
Has not one friend to spare." 

The success in life which plays so large a 
part in happiness is so frequently due to fortu- 
nate associations that he who wastes his powers 
of affection and of the kindness that makes men 
kin to him is as disastrously improvident as is 
he who wastes his physical strength idling along 
the primrose path of dalliance. 

To expend time and energy in winning the 
good opinion of unworthy men, to be ambi- 
tious to be known as a hail fellow well met, 
by a circle of acquaintances who will boister- 
ously greet your approach so long as you have 
money to spend, but be unable to recall any in- 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 35 

debtedness to you when your money is gone, is 
to throw away valuable time that ought to have 
been expended in winning the respect of a more 
worthy set of companions. 

The years when abiding friendships can be 
made are peculiarly the possession of youth. 
As the years increase and habits of life become 
fixtures of character it is increasingly difficult 
to retain the flexibility of mood and manner that 
is a prominent factor in the wedding of youth- 
ful companionships into life-long friendships. 
And as the years increase life tends to isolation, 
unless the habit of friendliness has been so well 
cultivated in youth as to lay up the treasures 
of companionship for old age, an isolation that 
has loneliness for its common name, a loneli- 
ness that is directly due to improvidence in the 
realm of associates. 

But the usually accepted interpretation of im- 
providence lies within the realm of our financial 
operations. 

Lack of foresight in this realm leads to such 
disastrous results that even the most prodigal 
among us become at times aware of the folly 
of not heeding the voice of experience about 
the relationship of income to outgo. 



36 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

Whatever may be the size of the income its 
use as a means to the attainment of happiness 
is governable by economic laws whose workings 
are inexorable. There is a certain elasticity 
about these laws, but the breaking point is not 
far removed from the place where an attempt is 
made to stretch the income to equal the outgo, 
instead of letting up on the outgo so that it may 
always be less than the income. 

To aid in determining the ratio of certain 
kinds of outgo to any kind of an income, a scien- 
tific study of the cost of living has resulted in 
the establishing of a definite relationship be- 
tween income and that part of the outgo called 
rent. In suburban districts where to the rent 
of a house there must be added the amount of 
money paid for water rates and taxes before the 
house becomes a shelter, one fifth of the income 
is the limit of expenditure for rent. In cities, 
where an apartment serves for shelter and 
where the rent is inclusive of heating and the 
water supply, with the customary services of a 
janitor for the various external and interior 
work that in suburban districts calls for an 
extra outlay, one fourth of the income may be 
used to provide the needed shelter. 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 37 

To exceed this ratio is to be improvident, for it 
becomes impossible to provide needed food, and 
clothing, and recreation, and the sense of se- 
curity that comes from being able to lay aside 
a little, be it ever so little, against the pro- 
verbial rainy day, unless the matter of ratio 
between income and outgo becomes a condi- 
tion under which we live and not only a theory 
to be discussed. 

In general then it is important to know that 
food and shelter must never be allowed to use 
up more than one half of the income. While to 
be on the safe side it is better to divide the in- 
come roughly into five parts. And to allow two 
fifths for food and shelter; one fifth for clothing, 
recreation, and general improvement; one fifth 
for emergency expenditures in repairing dam- 
ages through wear and tear, or in adding to the 
furnishings of the home, and in contributions to 
the support of the institutions and individuals 
who represent our ideals of social improvement 
and human betterment; and the remaining fifth 
for safe investment and thoughtful saving. 

The improvidence that fails to take advantage 
of this rational adjustment of outgo to income 
results in an increasing poverty which points to 



38 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

a loss of that liberty of thought and action essen- 
tial to happiness. 

And because the man who can no longer with 
hopeful tread follow the road that leads to hap- 
piness becomes a man who impedes the onward 
march of other men, it is necessary that the 
strongest possible pressure shall be brought to 
bear upon the individual by himself, to enable 
him to refrain from that improvidence physical, 
social, and financial, which results so disastrously 
for the individual and for the society of which he 
is a part. 

And there can be no stronger pressure than 
that which is afforded by the consciousness of 
an endless life. To spend an eternity reaping 
the results of improvidence is a thought terrible 
enough to compel the practice of thrift. While 
to spend an eternity reaping the harvest of happi- 
ness provided for us by our cooperation with the 
providence of God is a thought that has been 
strong to win men away from the practise of a 
recklessness that impoverishes, to the service 
of a thrift that enriches life with a character 
that will endure in any world that ever may be. 



IV 
DEBT 

THE desire to keep up appearances and 
to have the outward semblance at 
least of prosperity, is one of the 
causes of debt. When it is the fashion to in- 
dulge in extravagance there is a tendency to be 
fashionable even at the expense of prudence. 

We are many of us like Mark Twain when 
he said of himself, " I can stand anything ex- 
cept temptation." For the temptation to pur- 
chase present satisfaction by discounting our 
future happiness is one to which many of us 
invariably yield. 

The automobile craze is an illustration of the 
sort of temptation before which not only indi- 
viduals but communities are powerless to stand. 
The result of yielding to such a temptation was 
revealed recently in a statement made by one 
firm of automobile manufacturers showing that 
in the city of Minneapolis they held mortgages 



40 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

on one thousand five hundred homes. It is 
shown further by the reports of bond sales- 
men who declare that funds formerly used to 
purchase interest-bearing securities are in these 
days used to purchase automobiles. And the 
published statements of the trade journals 
show that for the year igii it is estimated that 
$800,000,000 will be spent in the United States 
for the cost and maintenance of automobiles. 

It has truly been said that the possession of 
an automobile does not show that a man has 
money; it simply shows that he had money. 
In countless instances it means that salaried 
men who have no way of increasing their in- 
comes have mortgaged their possessions and 
their future earning powers until they are 
saddled with a debt that spells disaster. 

A like yielding to indulgence in luxuries is 
the cause of an indebtedness on the part of 
men whose taste for the physical comforts of 
life urges them on to very many foolish expen- 
ditures. They are in a position to appreciate 
the incident recorded by Lewis Carroll in his 
story entitled "Through the Looking Glass," in 
which Alice, nearly exhausted after a great race 
with the Queen, was allowed to lean against 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 41 

a tree as the Queen said, " You may rest a little 
now"; and Alice, surprised at the familiar ap- 
pearance of the tree exclaimed, " Well ! in our 
country you generally get to somewhere else if 
you run as we have been doing." " A slow sort 
of country ! " said the Queen. " Now here, you 
see, it takes all the running you can do to keep 
in the same place." 

Another cause of debt is the temptation to 
invest in a business venture that is too big for 
the resources at one's command; or that lies 
outside the realm of one's knowledge or train- 
ing. Step by step the way leads on to compli- 
cations that call for larger and still larger ex- 
penditures until there is nothing left to do but 
to borrow from outside sources so long as 
credit holds good. 

It is here that the temptation to use the 
funds of the bank, or the securities of the firm, 
or the money held in trust becomes too strong 
to be resisted. And when tlie venture material- 
izes so slowly if at all as to fail of success be- 
fore the time of credit expires, the unfortunate 
victim of circumstances finds himself too deeply 
in debt to get out. He is to be congratulated 
if he escapes with his honor intact. 



42 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

There is also a third cause of debt; and its 
name is misfortune. 

Through no fault of his own a man may 
suffer the losses that befall because of illness, 
or because of a too confiding nature, or because 
of those strange fatalities to fortune called the 
" Acts of God." 

But no matter what may be the cause of debt 
there is no way by which the condition can be 
made dignified or agreeable. Nobody feels glad 
to have you come to ask for help to "pay for a 
dead horse," and the position of the debtor is a 
difficult one to endure however easy may be the 
road that leads into it. 

There are a lot of disagreeable words that be- 
gin with a d, — disease, death, dirt, disgrace, 
debt, and the devil. A word that is found in such 
evil company gets to be known by the company 
it keeps. But if the bad name of the thing is not 
sufficient to deter us from the experience, surely 
the effect of debt upon the men whom we know 
to be debtors ought to warn us to shun the paths 
of extravagance and of greed. 

Debtors may be divided, like all Gaul, into 
three parts. There is in the first division all 
those who are not worried by their debts. 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 43 

Their attitude is explained by the statement 
frequently heard from their lips, " The world 
owes me a living." And the man who so says 
proceeds to take it wherever he can find it. He 
lives at the expense of the washerwoman and the 
grocer and the small dealers whose wares he 
consumes, and he finds it cheaper to move than 
to pay rent. He will let a widowed mother work 
her fingers to the bone and wear her life away 
in dull drudgery while he idles along on what 
money he can extort from her. 

Out in the world of men he is the " sponge " 
and the " deadbeat," who abuses friendship by 
prostituting it to the making of gain for him- 
self; or he is the schemer who beguiles the pub- 
lic into buying shares in wildcat mines and get- 
rich-quick concerns. 

He is the trickster and the thief. He needs 
the grip of the law to teach him to respect the 
property of other people; and the grip of the 
Gospel to teach him to respect himself. For 
while it is true that the world owes every man 
a living, it is also true that before payment is 
made the man must be identified. And it takes 
a lot of hard work to get identified at the Bank 
of Fortune. 



44 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

The second division of debtors includes all 
those who find debt a nightmare. They are far 
removed in spirit from the careless debtors who 
are the world's ne'er-do-wells. They are the 
careworn folk who walk the floor nights and 
sigh through long days of torture because they 
cannot free themselves from the evils into which 
they have come. 

They are in a state of mind similar to that of 
one of the sons of the prophets whose story is 
told in the Scriptures. Elisha was persuaded to 
go with a company of young men who desired 
to emigrate from their crowded school and es- 
tablish a new one. While engaged in cutting 
timber for the new schoolhouse it happened that 
the axe-head flew from the handle and fell into 
the water. The youth who had been wielding 
the axe saw with great consternation that the 
axe-head sank. " And he cried, and said, Alas, 
master! for it was borrowed." 

Elisha performed a miracle and caused the 
iron to swim and so relieved the distress of the 
young man. And the youth of to-day who sees 
his borrowings sink into the waters of the busi- 
ness whirlpool cries out likewise for a miracle 
to relieve his distress. 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 45 

The men of this class of debtors remember 
when it is too late that Solomon warned the 
world ages ago that " the borrower is always 
servant to the lender " ; and the bondage into 
which they are brought is more galling than 
was the physical confinement of the old time 
debtor in the Fleet Street Debtor's Prison, so 
vividly described by Samuel Warren in his chap- 
ter about the unfortunate Mr. Aubrey in " Ten 
Thousand a Year/' 

The third division of debtors include those 
who know how to profit by the use of credit. 
Fortunes have been founded by prudent bor- 
rowers and debt rightly used may become an 
aid to prosperity. 

The principle of the careful debtor is easily 
stated in a few words. It consists in capital- 
izing only legitimate resources and refusing to 
become involved in transactions that invert the 
plan of the pyramid. 

The broad foundation is character. Honest 
work with brain and brawn; honest training 
in preparation for trade or profession; honest 
investment of time and talent; these are the 
well-known qualities of the men whom other 
men trust. 



46 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

Such men do not buy what they cannot af- 
ford, nor do they borrow beyond their ability 
to refund. They do not indulge in speculations 
which will enrich them if they succeed, but 
which will ruin them and their friends in case 
of failure. 

While these men are debtors in that they 
borrow money from their friends and from 
the banks, they are such only in the strict busi- 
ness sense; and their indebtedness is counte- 
nanced and controlled by the laws of the world 
of finance. 

So long as a man's honesty is greater than his 
ambition he is safe from the debt that hinders 
happiness. 

Debt, therefore, is of two kinds: honorable 
and dishonorable. The dishonorable debt is a 
hindrance to happiness, while the honorable 
debtor may become a source of happiness to 
himself and to others. 

In the largest sense we are all debtors; and 
there are debts that can never be paid in the 
coin of any realm. They are the debts that the 
heart owes to loved ones who stand between us 
and the temptations of the world. These debts 
must be paid if happiness is ever to be won, and 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 47 

here also the same three divisions of men are 
found. 

There is the man who takes all the love that 
is given him as a matter of course, which needs 
no repayment and calls for no word of acknowl- 
edgment or of appreciation. He becomes the 
boor and the ruffian who tramples under foot the 
hearts that love him, and embitters the lives that 
look to him for sweetness and light. He is often 
excused on the ground of his excessive business 
burdens, or he is called by some euphemistic 
name, such as careless, or thoughtless. But really 
he is criminal and brutal, for he is slowly but 
surely slaying Love, the greatest thing in the 
world. 

The second division includes those who awake 
from selfishness only in time to cry out in anguish 
of soul " for the touch of a vanished hand and the 
sound of a voice that is still.'* It is better to sor- 
row for the sin of selfishness too late than not 
to sorrow at all; but it is better far to travel 
the road of self-denial and sacrifice and enter 
the third division where it is the privilege of 
every youth to be. 

And that is the division which includes all 
those who, from the humblest lovers up to the 



48 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

great Lover of our Souls, have given their hearts 
to the service of human need. 

It is these lives that minister to the victims 
of misfortune and keep alive that blessed charity 
which suffereth long and is kind. It is these 
lives that shelter the unfortunate and house the 
helpless and love the unlovely. It is to them 
that we owe the kindness that like rain from 
heaven lays the dust of life's highway, and 
makes the road a path of pleasantness. 

It is worth while to strive to keep in this 
third division of debtors, the careful debtors, 
meeting our obligations honestly both in the 
realm of finance and in the realm of the heart; 
for so shall we be free from the debts that 
hinder our happiness. 



V 

POVERTY 

RICH and poor are relative terms usu- 
ally used in regard to material posses- 
sions; but poverty, rightly defined, is 
a condition of life which is relative not to 
material considerations but to character. 

Briefly described poverty is best portrayed 
as a state of life in which efficiency is im- 
possible because the means of nourishing life 
are insufficient. 

It has been found by scientific investigation 
that a proportion approximating one tenth of the 
population is existing in poverty. In New York 
City the proportion has been ascertained to be 
about fourteen per cent. It has become custom- 
ary to write and speak of these unfortunates 
as "the submerged tenth." 

The reason for the existence of this inefficient 
body of people of inadequate means has occa- 
sioned much study on the part of social in- 
vestigators and reformers, as well as no little 



50 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

bewilderment on the part of legislative com- 
mittees and well-meaning societies organized to 
discover and apply remedies that would really 
relieve existing distress. 

It has been supposed that certain qualities of 
personal life, such as shiftlessness and igno- 
rance and intemperance, have been to blame 
for poverty; and only recently has it been seen 
that these qualities may be effects instead of 
causes of poverty. 

It has been held that if employment could 
be found for the victims of poverty their con- 
dition would be improved; but out of forty men 
taken from the " bread line " on a certain night 
thirty-nine of them proved to be unemployable. 
Lack of proper nourishment had so impoverished 
the physical, mental, and moral organism that 
the ability to take advantage of an opportunity 
to work was altogether wanting. 

Attempts to better the condition of poverty 
pinched people by seeking to reclaim them 
through the administration of good intentioned 
but unwise charities have been about as effective 
as would be the efforts put forth to purify the 
water in a well by painting the shed that 
covers it. 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 51 

The great difficulty in the way of providing 
a remedy for poverty has been the ignorance 
in the minds of those who have not understood 
the difference between the causes of poverty 
and its effects. This ignorance and the cure for 
it was suggested by Mr. Robert Treat Paine of 
Boston when he said that what was needed was 
not alms but a friend. And his suggestion has 
had ample illustration of its wisdom in the recent 
declaration of earnest students of the problem 
who state that poverty has but two causes. 

The first cause is the exploitation of labor by 
the greed for gain at the expense of human life; 
and finds one of its effects in children deprived 
of the privilege of having a playtime, and made 
prematurely old by the drudgery of mines and 
mills and factories where child-labor is employed. 

The result of child-labor is evidenced in un- 
developed bodies and minds and in lives unfitted 
for the duties of maturity. 

The second cause is the lack of proper govern- 
mental interest in the welfare of citizens. This 
does not mean paternalism, but refers to the 
duties of States as administrators of the rights 
of the people. It means that when men are in- 
capacitated for work by conditions of life that 



52 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

render them unfit for labor, or that rob them of 
the desire to work, it is the business of the 
State to investigate and remedy those conditions. 
For poverty is a preventable disease which will 
yield to treatment when the disease is not only 
diagnosed, but attacked at its source. 

To effect a cure has been the desire of all 
dreamers of a better day who, like Edward 
Bellamy in his " Looking Backwards," and 
More in his " Utopia," have imagined a time 
when every individual would get his full share 
of good things; and have then busied them- 
selves deciding whether it would be best to 
have the good things delivered by automobile 
or by airship. 

The cure has been attempted by the Socialists. 
Their hopes have been fixed upon the good that 
would come to all from having the power to 
benefit the public proceed from a centralized 
authority strong enough to impose a desire for 
the good of all upon all mankind. But it has 
been demonstrated that a continued imposition 
of power and direction from outside tends to 
reduce the creative strength of the individual. 
And the one thing necessary to remedy the con- 
ditions that produce poverty is that such crea- 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 53 

tive strength, which is only another name for 
the power of initiative, shall be not diminished, 
but intensified. 

The cure proposed by the Anarchist is also 
ineffective. For while the Anarchist would de- 
stroy poverty he would also destroy wealth 
and all things else beside. So that following 
the successful operation of the program of the 
Anarchist mankind would have to begin all 
over again, and could only reproduce a civiliza- 
tion which would again have to be overthrown. 

And while organizations have been busy fight- 
ing intemperance and idleness and immorality; 
and while doctrinaires have been contending 
over the value of their several remedies, they 
have one and all been encouraged in their in- 
effective assaults upon the manifestations of the 
disease by the attitude of the churches toward 
the disease itself. 

A saying of Jesus has been taken from its con- 
text and made to sound as though He has de- 
clared that poverty was a necessary condition of 
life for a portion of mankind. " The poor," said 
Jesus, " you have with you always ; and when- 
soever you will you may do them good." 

But what He said in those words, and what it 



54 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

has been held that He said, are as opposite as 
the poles. 

He was not justifying the existence o£ poverty ; 
but was rebuking His disciples with an irony 
which has seemingly been too subtle for the 
Christian centuries to feel. 

The disciples of Jesus were murmuring because 
Mary had poured precious ointment upon Him. 
Judas became their spokesman and said that the 
ointment could have been sold and the money 
given to the poor. " This he said not because he 
cared for the poor, but because he was a thief " ; 
and as he carried the common purse he wanted 
to have whatever benefit he could get from con- 
trolling all the money on which he could lay 
his hands. Jesus, knowing his heart, rebuked 
him and all who are of his spirit. 

What Jesus said was that criticism was un- 
called for so far as the deed of Mary was con- 
cerned, because if there was any real desire to 
help the poor there was every opportunity to do 
so. The sudden awakening to their needs on 
the part of Judas was brought about by his 
cupidity which Jesus sought to put to shame. 

But the words have been torn from their set- 
jilr.p" and made to serve as a dogmatic dec- 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 55 

laration that poverty is ordained of God as a 
permanent component part of society. 

There have been times when the churches 
have openly encouraged poverty as a condition 
peculiarly pleasing to God, and the poor have 
been told that poverty was a trial sent from God 
to develop their faith and test their loyalty. 

To-day, however, we are becoming ashamed 
to so misrepresent the God and Father of Jesus 
Christ; for we have come to see that poverty 
is not only not desirable and not inevitable, 
but that it is entirely unnatural and altogether 
intolerable. 

We have gone behind the external expres- 
sions of the disease and have learned its causes. 
And they are removable. The remedies for 
the disease are known and wherever they have 
been applied the results obtained in lives re- 
deemed from unhappiness and uselessness have 
justified the utmost faith in their efficiency. 

Every young man who is willing to give him- 
self to the service of men may have a share in 
abolishing poverty. 

He must remember that character is the foun- 
dation of prosperity and that the lack of it lets 
the building of life sink into the mire of poverty. 



56 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

The very poor believe that the world is against 
them and that no individual effort can change 
that apparent fact. They lack proper food and 
suitable clothing. They are forced by their con- 
dition to congregate in congested districts and 
are not properly housed. The lack of these ma- 
terial necessities weakens the physical life and 
creates the desire for the inhibitions produced 
by intoxicants and excitements. It weakens the 
ambition and makes sluggish the will to create 
better conditions. 

The problem that confronted Booker Wash- 
ington when he attempted to befriend the Negro 
is the problem that abides wherever poverty 
abounds. It is the problem of awakening right 
desires in people whose desires are all wrong. 
Such wrong desires are latent in us all as is evi- 
denced by our childhood evasion of duty in the 
interest of what seems more agreeable at the 
moment. As when the boy proposes to help 
mother wipe the dishes by the kitchen stove, 
when he ought to be out in the cold woodshed 
splitting kindlings for the morning fire. 

Even so the victim of poverty prefers to spend 
the pennies he has begged for the drink that 
may help him to forget for the moment the hard • 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 57 

ships of the life he endures; while what he 
needs is to know that there is a lasting relief 
from misery, and that relief lies in having a 
desire to save his pennies. 

The trouble is that such a desire is beyond his 
will power. The pleasure of prudence has been 
denied him for so long a time that he has lost 
the power to desire it. He only desires pity 
and idleness, and sinks easily into the crimes 
for which his weakness makes him a willing tool. 

The remedy lies in the hands of the more 
fortunate portions of the population as they 
speak through the State. For the State has 
long taught the three R's in the public schools, 
and more recently attempts have been made to 
train the hands as well as the heads of the pupils. 
But the State must also teach by means of Pos- 
tal Saving Banks, and Provident Loan Banks, 
and Cooperative Building Associations. 

Wherever organizations and institutions and 
churches have gone to work along these lines, 
as has the Salvation Army and as have several 
well-known churches in New York and other 
cities, the results have encouraged the workers 
to believe in the ability of proper educational 
methods to abolish poverty. 



58 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

In this work we may all have a share as we 
seek through various organizations to arouse 
public interest in the value of awakening self- 
respect and self-reliance in the souls that com- 
prise "the submerged tenth." And by so much 
as we succeed will we enable the helpless to help 
themselves, and the unhappy to find happiness 
as they travel the road that leads away from 
poverty and come to the dawn of a prosperous 
day. 



VI 

PESSIMISM 

BEHIND every fit of the blues there lies 
the thought which is known to the 
philosophers as pessimism. 

Very much of the depression of spirits in the 
presence of real or imaginary trouble arises from 
ill health, so that there is some excuse for the 
pun which states that whether life is worth living 
depends upon the liver. 

This statement reveals a truth in the world of 
thought which is closely allied to the expressions 
of cynicism in the world of speech ; for the pessi- 
mism of which the philosophers write arises from 
a disorder of the mind. 

If physical organs are not properly adjusted 
to the needs of the body, life becomes a burden 
and its duties impossible of fulfillment. Under 
such conditions it is natural to expect a pessi- 
mistic view of the world. But pessimism is not 
always the result of ill health. There never was 
a more optimistic soul than that of Shelley, whose 



6o HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

poetry breathes hope and tells of triumphs to 
come. Yet he was sickly and short-lived, and 
while he lived he suffered from domestic troubles 
that would have been intolerable to most men; 
often he was in the direst need of money, and he 
had a very poor opinion of the society with which 
he was surrounded. 

The reason why he was not pessimistic was 
because his intellectual ability enabled him to 
see that the world was capable of reformation 
and that it was indeed on the eve of being regen- 
erated. The triumph of mind over matter was 
illustrated in his attitude toward life in spite of 
his physical and temporal ills. 

If the mental processes are not properly ad- 
justed to the needs of the mind thought becomes 
confused and the problems presented by the 
world in which we live cannot be satisfactorily 
solved. A pessimist has been defined as a man 
who when he looks at a doughnut sees only the 
hole ; but to see life truly it is necessary to have 
a range of vision wide enough to see the ex- 
panse of blankness and darkness, and to see also 
the outer rim of light and truth. 

As a system of thought pessimism has had 
three stages in its development. The first stage 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 6i 

is occupied by those who like certain of the an- 
cient Greeks denied the possibility of knowing 
that anything which existed was good. The 
second stage includes all those who divide the 
universe between the powers of good and evil, 
and then emphasize the extent and empire of 
evil, as does the Buddhist and the modern fol- 
lowers of the teachings of Hume. The third 
stage presents to view the writings of Schopen- 
hauer and Hartmann who think that life is wholly 
evil, being filled with an amount of suffering 
which will eventually destroy the desire for life. 

But in considering the matter of pessimism it 
is of great significance that the most dogmatic 
statements about the evils of life are made by 
young men; and that with very few exceptions 
the poets and prophets of despair have been men 
whose experience of life has been short and 
meager. They have translated the world in terms 
of their own limited knowledge and have allowed 
their own experience to stand in the stead of a 
general truth. 

It was in London that a traveller who was 
loitering along through a quaint old street in 
Soho had his attention arrested by a vociferous 
little unkempt specimen of humanity who was 



62 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

berating her lord and master. He stood lolling 
against the doorway until she paused out of 
breath ; and then he pushed past her, pausing 
only to remark, " You 're like a Winter's day, 
short and dirty." And so she was. But a few 
squares away the Covent Garden Royal Opera 
House was thronged with clean and cheerful 
English people. If the traveller had been a 
pessimist he would have remembered only the 
sordid scene in Soho and forgotten altogether 
about the opera in Covent Garden. 

It will not do to look at the partial manifes- 
tation of the phenomena of life and draw con- 
clusions therefrom regarding life in its entirety, 
nor to take the experiences of a phase of life 
as an adequate expression of all experience. 

This is particularly the error of youth and has 
its basis of fact in the physiological construction 
of life as evidenced in the tremendous physical 
changes which mark the transition from boy- 
hood to the days of early manhood. 

These physical changes affect the nervous 
energy and give power to the will, until the 
youth is able to glory in his vigor and revel in 
his strength of purpose. Life makes its appeal 
as to a master, and no task seems too great, no 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 63 

dream too wonderful to be fulfilled. Gradually 
as promise fails to be equalled by performance 
dissatisfaction begins to develop and the youth 
questions his surroundings and blames his 
failures upon lack of opportunity. 

It is at this point that pessimism finds its be- 
ginnings, in the time of natural reaction from the 
exuberance of the first flush of manhood. 

Urged on by discontent the young man is 
easily persuaded that there are better black- 
berries over the fence, and greater advantages 
in a larger field. But however frequent are the 
moves he makes, and however far he may travel, 
he cannot get away from himself and his dis- 
position. Instead of giving up at the first sign 
of difficulty and instead of running away from 
hardships, youth needs to heed the advice of 
Thoreau as he says, " there is no hope for you 
unless this bit of sod under your feet is the 
sweetest to you in all the world." 

For the cure of pessimism, while usually 
wrought by the increasing love of life as the 
years pass, may be hastened by the proper ad- 
justment of oneself to existing conditions. 

As physical health means the adjustment of 
physical organs to bodily needs, so mental health 



64 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

depends upon the adjustment of thought to the 
needs of the spirit. 

When therefore youth is tempted to submit 
to the gloom caused by evil and disaster, it is 
necessary to exercise the mind as one must needs 
exercise the body to keep it in health. 

Surely there are great sorrows that threaten 
to overwhelm the soul, and there are great 
wrongs that threaten to overthrow justice and 
righteousness. But the spirit of a man is allied 
to a very wonderful desire to live on in spite of 
evils encountered and sorrows that have to be 
borne. And Maeterlinck has recently said that 
" the desire to live and the acceptance of life as 
it is are expressions in unconscious accord with 
laws that are vaster and more sacred than the 
desire to escape the sorrows of life." 

Here is the point: that whenever the mind 
becomes obsessed with fear of disaster it must be 
exercised toward greatness. ** Bodily exercise," 
said St. Paul, " profiteth a little ; but Godliness 
with contentment is great gain." That is, as 
bodily exercise helps toward physical health, 
mental exercise, which is the stretching of 
thought toward the Eternal, helps most amaz- 
ingly toward mental health. 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 65 

Following close upon such exercise of thought 
comes the ability to make the " bit of sod under 
your feet " a precious heritage of opportunity ; 
and the work you have to do becomes important 
and its results a valuable contribution that you 
are making to the betterment of the world. 

Even when allowed to run its course pessi- 
mism sometimes cures itself as it did in the case 
of Schopenhauer. 

There never was a more pronounced apostle 
of despair than was he in his youth. But of his 
later life Moebius records that " Schopenhauer 
as an old man enjoyed life and was not any 
longer a pessimist." But he robbed himself of 
years of contentment and shed gloom and mel- 
ancholy upon generations after him because he 
was not able to " see life steadily and see it 
whole." 

With him, as with all serious minded folk, 
the critical faculty grew faster than did his con- 
structive ability. He was able to recognize and 
analyze the evils of life, but the piled up aggre- 
gate of humanity's ills paralyzed his ability to 
reform and reorganize the life about him. 

To surrender to the difficulties which life pre- 
sents is to store up the memory of failures, and 



66 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

presently it will happen that the weight of one's 
thought about hardship will serve to sink life 
into the depths of despair. But Garibaldi made 
a united Italy possible by teaching men to en- 
dure hardships. " Men who follow me," said 
he, " must learn to live without bread and fight 
without ammunition." 

If ever the world is to become filled with glad- 
ness it will be when we are all busy in making a 
better place of the world in which we find our- 
selves by developing the strength described by 
George Eliot when she makes Adam Bede say, 
" There 's nothing but what 's bearable so long 
as a man can work; for the best o* work is, it 
gives you a grip hold o' things outside your own 
lot." For there is always something to be done 
as well as something to be suffered. 

" Every man shall bear his own burden," says 
the Scripture, and also, " Bear ye one another's 
burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ." The 
paradox of these words is the paradox of life 
itself. For no man can help bear the burdens 
of others till he has become strong through bear- 
ing his own. And it is strangely true that 
strength to bear one's own burdei^§ js increased 
by sharing the bur4ens of others, 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 67 

To sink into despair under the burdens of life 
is the fate of the pessimist; but happiness is the 
reward of the man who ventures to believe that 
it is worth while to lend a helping hand; and 
such a venture seems wise to him whose far- 
reaching vision gives rise to boundless hope. 

To cure a fit of the blues and to prevent occa- 
sional despondency from developing into the sys- 
tem of thought called pessimism it is necessary 
therefore to practice the art of adjustment. The 
adjustment of bodily organs to physical needs 
where that is possible; and where it is not pos- 
sible the mind can still be kept sane and brave 
even in the presence of life's most baffling prob- 
lems by the adjustment of thought to the ex- 
istence of a will greater than our own, which 
bids us live and labor until we can say with 
Rabbi Ben Ezra: 

•* Grow old along with me ! 

The best is yet to be, 
The last of life, for which the first was made. 

Our times are in His hand 

Who saith * A whole I planned, 
Youth shows but half; trust God; see all, 

Nor be afraid.' " 



VII 
LYING 

THE devotion of men to a cause is evi- 
dence of their willingness to be true to 
the principles of which the cause is the 
embodied expression; and the mark of devotion 
is the degree of willingness displayed. 

If, for instance, a man appears as an apostle 
of a protective tariff, he must be willing to en- 
dorse the principles of protection in his private 
dealings as well as in his public utterances. 
To attempt to smuggle into the country mer- 
chandise bought abroad is to put himself under 
suspicion as to his motives. At once he is pre- 
sented to the public as insincere. His deeds do 
not square with his words. He is disloyal to 
truth and merits the scorn of honest men. 

Far deeper than the need for devotion to any 
special cause is the need for devotion to the in- 
tegrity of society without which all causes are 
left without a foundation; and the integrity of 
society is preserved by truth. 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 69 

If no man spoke the truth there could be no 
society, nor could there be a society where the 
majority of men were disloyal to truth. If all 
men in the United States were like the wealthy 
manufacturer who voted to keep in power that 
political party which stands for a protective 
tariff, but who was caught recently by the 
Customs men and convicted by the courts for 
smuggling, this Union would disintegrate. Not 
because merchandise was smuggled into the 
country in defiance of law, but because the laws 
were being evaded by the very men who made 
them. 

It is entirely possible that a man who does not 
support a law may by his defiance of it help so- 
ciety onward and upward. But then his defiance 
will be as open and as outspoken as his words. 
That is what the women in England who break 
the laws and welcome imprisonment for the 
sake of the suffrage are doing for society. Some 
may believe them altogether mistaken in theii 
hopes and aims; but mistaken or not, they are 
loyal to truth as they see it, and are conse- 
quently strengthening society by their willing- 
ness to serve the cause of their choice with the 
utmost measure of devotion. 



70 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

To profess one set of views about the 
needs of society and to practice another and 
a different set is to display the characteristics 
of a liar, one who seeks to profit by pretense 
and prosper at the expense of truth. Such con- 
duct destroys the sense of security in the sta- 
bility of institutions upon which society rests. 

The home is threatened to-day by the preva- 
lence of those who lightly assume the marriage 
vows and as lightly break them. The State is 
threatened by those who accept the protection 
of laws which they secretly try to evade. The 
churches are threatened by those who profess 
to believe in dogmas and creeds while in their 
inmost soul they believe in religious liberty. 
For by pretense and evasion and imposture men 
weaken the structure of society, and as liars they 
become the heretics of humanity. 

David said in his haste that all men are liars. 
But his statement proves only that broken 
pledges and unfulfilled promises abound in the 
experience of kings and leaders of men. So 
many attempts are made to work on the sus- 
ceptibility of kindly disposed people that they 
learn to expect deceit and to be suspicious of 
every appeal made to them. One of the hardest 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 71 

things for a man of means to do is to win a well- 
deserved reputation for generosity and at the 
same time escape from being an " easy mark." 

The liar hinders the happiness of society by 
destroying good faith and delaying the growth 
of goodness. By not keeping faith with those 
who trust him he undermines their faith in all 
others, however worthy, who may be in need 
of sympathy and aid. 

By his disregard for truth the liar also de- 
stroys his own usefulness to society. He who 
lies by misstatements or by misdeeds is also a 
thief. He steals from the social order to which 
he belongs the contribution of manhood which 
he owes to society. Disloyal to truth he is 
equally disloyal to every principle of human 
solidarity. He cannot be of service to the 
commerce of the world for trade depends upon 
truth, and a man's word must be as good as his 
bond in order that the system of credit may 
have a sound basis in human character. Neither 
can the liar be of service to art, or science, or 
religion. 

In the world of art he is the man who prosti- 
tutes his great gifts to the making of gain; who 
ignores his vision of beauty for the vision of a 



72 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

cheap success. In the world of science the liar 
is the man who, as a " quack," deludes the 
credulous; while in religion he has long been 
known as the hypocrite whose professions are 
made to cloak his practices. 

Hypocrites, charlatans, time-servers, are all 
liars who weaken the structure of the social 
order. 

In the ideal society dreamed of by St. John 
on Patmos there can enter no one " who maketh 
a lie " ; and the first apostle of Christianity to 
the world insists that the new social order de- 
mands that men shall " lie not one to another," 
but "putting away lying, speak every man 
truth with his neighbor." 

It was left to a professor of theology to 
publish a defense of lying in 1902 in a book 
published in Paris and bearing the imprint of 
the Vicar General of the church in that city, 
a book based upon the statement that a lie is 
an attempt to deceive some one "who has a 
right to know the truth." 

St. Paul would have anathematized him. 

But meeting the statement on its own level, 
let us ask who is there who has not a right to 
know the truth from us? 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 73 

Our enemies in time of war, it is said, have no 
right to expect to hear the truth from us. But 
war and lying are both reprehensible and must 
be abolished. Besides, it is far from true that 
we have a right to lie to our enemies in time of 
war. In fact the civilized nations have agreed 
that flags of truce must not be used to deceive 
and that an armistice must not be made an am- 
buscade. In so far as war and its necessities 
tempt men to forget their manhood and to lie, 
it is to be classed with other temptations and 
recognized as the offspring of the devil. Bullies 
and braggarts and liars, whether they are such 
as individuals or as nations, are pests that society 
must suppress. 

There was a secret organization in existence 
not so many years ago whose test for admission 
was the question, " If a red Indian came to your 
house to kill your mother and, knowing her to 
be hiding in the house, you were confronted by 
the Indian and he asked you if your mother was 
in, would you lie and stain your soul, or 
would you tell the truth and see your mother 
slain? " It is said that out of a large number 
of applicants only one youth failed to save his 
mother at the expense of his soul. 



74 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

It is told of a recent monarch that "he lied 
like a gentleman" to protect the honor of a 
woman; and it was understood that his attitude 
met with general approval. 

But such questions are of interest to debating 
societies and fall far outside of the accustomed 
needs of life. Not one man in a thousand will 
ever be placed in a position where he will need 
to save his life or his honor or his friends by a 
lie. And if it should happen, he to whom it hap- 
pens is to be pitied by men and judged for his 
conduct only by his God. 

Men, however, who are the personification of 
truthfulness in private and personal relation- 
ships seem to feel no twinges of conscience 
when they lie about public matters. 

Especially in political campaigns does the liar 
flourish. The newspapers give the wings of the 
morning to some lie about a man in public life, 
and it flies over the land not to be overtaken by 
any denial however vigorous. It is declared that 
the end justifies the means ; and that while Judge 
Blank is not indeed what the liar has represented 
him to be, the party behind the judge is untrust- 
worthy, and if his defeat can bring about the de- 
feat of the party the liar is justified for his lie. 



1 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 75 

This sort of reasoning was made ludicrous by 
Pascal in his " Provincial Letters." In that book 
he tells about Father Puys, a parish priest near 
Lyons, France, who wrote a pamphlet urging 
the duty of attending one's own parish church, 
instead of running about after strange preachers. 
Now the Jesuits were noted at that time for the 
brilliant preachers whom they sent into the 
country towns; and Father Alby, a Jesuit 
official, thinking that his order was being at- 
tacked, declared from his pulpit that Father 
Puys, an old and greatly respected clergyman, 
was really a man of licentious habits, whose in- 
trigues with women were notorious, who was 
suspected of being an impious heretic, and who 
deserved to be burnt. Poor Father Puys, over- 
come by these denunciations, stated that he had 
no intention of attacking the Jesuits, who had 
not even been in his mind. And on being per- 
suaded that the parish priest had not intention- 
ally attacked the Jesuits, Father Alby said that 
" knowing better now what his intention was, 
he declared him to be a man of enlightened in- 
tellect, of profound and orthodox learning, of 
irreproachable character, and, in a word, a 
worthy pastor of his church." 



76 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

Attacks of this nature are still looked upon 
in some quarters as good politics; but decent 
men do not any longer fight with such a 
disregard for truth. 

The public has a right to expect the truth 
from any man who aspires to leadership, and the 
lie cannot be justified either on the grounds of 
expedience or of results. 

Nor will it be possible to name one among all 
the circle of your friends and associates who 
has not the right to expect the truth from you, 
and for whom, if you lie, you do not hinder the 
growth of that confidence in men which is es- 
sential to the development of a peaceful and 
prosperous society. 

And also you hurt yourself; for you have to 
live with the lie. And such companionship is 
destructive of your own peace, as Miss Donnell 
tells so exquisitely in her short story called 
" The Lie." In that story she describes the bed- 
time of the little boy, Russy, who has lied to his 
friend Jeff. The maid has tucked him in and 
put out the light and left him for the night. 
But sleep will not come. That first lie comes 
creeping up the stairs, and comes slinking up 
to the side of the bed, a new terror of the dark. 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 77 

" Move over, I 'm going to sleep with you. How 
did you ever happen to let me into such a nice 
place as this ? I never thought you 'd make 
friends with me." Russy, poor, frightened little 
boy, can't stand such close quarters with the 
thing, but leaves his bed in an agony of fear, and 
hunts in the darkness for the window-seat where 
at least he can breathe; and there he clings till 
mother comes home and finds him and comforts 
him as only mothers can. 

And can you tell lies now and yet sleep in 
peace? 

That is what the liar becomes ; a man indiffer- 
ent to the hurt he does himself, to the harm he 
does society, and to the hindrance that he is 
to humanity in its march toward happiness and 
towards God. 



VIII 
WORRY 

THE worry that is the result of wrong 
doing cannot be cured except by re- 
moving the cause, which is accom- 
plished by confession and such restitution as is 
possible, with the acceptance of whatever pun- 
ishment the broken laws involved may demand. 

Proof of this statement may be seen in 
the relief obtained by men who have been con- 
victed for wrongs they have done. Invariably 
they express satisfaction in exchanging days 
filled with the torture of worry over the fear of 
exposure, even for the restraint of a prison cell. 

To avoid the nerve-racking worries of a life 
of double dealing it is necessary to avoid the 
double dealing. 

But the worries that fret an honest soul are 
almost as distressing as those that disturb the 
peace of the evil doer; and to avoid them it is 
necessary also to remove the cause. 

Simply to say "don't worry," is the same as 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 79 

telling a near-sighted child not to squint. The 
child needs to be fitted with proper eye-glasses 
before he will be able to stop squinting, and the 
man who worries needs to see life in its proper 
perspective before he can follow the advice of 
the philosophers and look at life steadily and 
interpret its events without distorting their 
meaning. 

A large class of worries is formed by the er- 
roneous idea that the individual is the center of 
the universe, so that to the self-conscious soul 
it seems that all the ills of life are purposely 
directed against himself. This egocentric scheme 
of thought produces an exaggerated view of in- 
dividual importance, whereby a man is impressed 
with a sense of being singled out as the target 
for misfortunes. 

If a day is decided upon for an outing the 
man who worries for fear rain will spoil his 
plans exhibits the egocentric character. He is 
afraid that the forces of nature will conspire 
against his happiness. If he buys stocks and 
bonds he worries lest all the forces of the com- 
mercial world conspire to ruin his chance of 
fortune. If he enters a room filled with guests 
he worries himself into hot flushes and cold 



8o HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

perspirations for fear he will win the dis- 
approval of the company by some social error. 
As if companies of people, and business in- 
terests, and natural laws, existed "only for the 
purpose of helping or harming himself. 

To cure this class of worries it is evidently 
essential that the individual afflicted with them 
shall see himself as related to the society of 
which he is a part ; not as the center about which 
all life revolves, but as a cog in the wheel. 
And it is foolish to imagine oneself of so much 
importance as to believe that any set of people, 
or any combination of business interests, to say 
nothing of the operation of great natural laws, 
are all finding nothing better to do than to 
concentrate attention upon securing the unhap- 
piness of any individual. 

But there is a class of worries that is more 
difficult to cure; and that is the class which 
springs from obsessions. The classic illustration 
for these worries is the picture of the great 
Dr. Johnson walking the streets of London 
striking posts with his stick. If he missed one 
he went back and struck it, else he worried for 
fear some bad luck would attend him. 

To step across the threshold of one's door with 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 8i 

one foot first rather than the other ; to put on the 
right shoe first rather than the left, or vice versa ; 
to walk under a ladder; or to see the new moon 
over the wrong shoulder; these calamities fill 
the mind of the obsessed man with gloomy 
forebodings. 

To cure obsessions it is necessary to displace 
the thought which breeds worry for one which 
breeds disdain of trifles. If your mind is so 
constituted that it cannot work until all the 
annoyances of life are removed; if you cannot 
read unless there is absolute quiet in the room, 
nor sleep if a window rattles; if to touch a piece 
of velvet or to bite into an apple makes you 
shiver ; if such little things make you worry until 
they are adjusted to your liking, you are the 
victim of obsessions which can be removed by 
cultivating thoughts of control and of mastery. 

It is useless to say to such a victim, " don't 
let trifles annoy you," " don't worry " ; for first 
the victim needs to realize that what he feels is 
of small moment compared to what he does. The 
man who has been patiently striking posts along 
the street and worrying himself over the little 
annoyances of life can begin his cure by filling 
his mind with the thought that happiness is to be 



82 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

secured in spite of annoyances. Surely the mind 
of a man is able to develop the thought that 
happiness depends not upon the perfect adjust- 
ment of surroundings to oneself, but upon the 
adjustment of oneself to life as it must be lived 
in a world filled with events whose purposes must 
often run counter to our own. 

A third class of worries finds its origin in 
the spirit of our times. 

Very early in life it is impressed upon us that 
we must excel in whatever we do. Copy book 
maxims stimulate the schoolboy to believe that 
" whatever is worth doing is worth doing well," 
and that " there is always room at the top." As 
life progresses toward maturity the man awakens 
some day to realize that he has not reached the 
top, and that he has failed often in well doing. 

To worry over thwarted ambitions and unful- 
filled hopes is often the result of the ideas 
implanted in the minds of children, ideas about 
excelling everybody and outdistancing all com- 
petitors on the road to success. 

But there are many things that are worth doing 
even if but poorly done ; and the only supremacy 
worth while is that over oneself. 

If the natural gifts of a man make him a univer- 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 83 

sal genius or a favorite of fortune he may rise to 
heights of eminence without loss of the poise 
that contributes to peace; but if he can excel 
only at the expense of overstrained energies 
worry is certain to fill his soul. 

The only excellence worth striving for is to 
see that to-day's deeds are done better than 
yesterday's, so that by a steady development of 
ability the journey of life may gradually grow 
swifter as the goal is neared. Otherwise the man 
who overstrains his ability is riding for a fail. 

If you catch the trout for which you are fish- 
ing, the satisfaction of success is yours; but if 
you lose him, it is possible to believe that in 
saving the cost of the butter in which you would 
have fried him you are by so much ahead of the 
game. 

Another class of worries includes those which 
reach out into the future. The prevalence of 
fortune tellers and dealers in the occult bears 
witness to the large number of persons who seek 
to allay their dread of the future by lifting the veil 
from the unseen. 

Men who are entirely free from the worries 
caused by past and present ills are sometimes 
filled with fear about the future. They have 



84 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

learned to apply the rule about past happenings 
which advises us that in regard to matters that 
give occasion for worry there are two courses of 
action open to us. If the matter can be remedied, 
remedy it ; and if it can't, dismiss it, and make the 
best of the next chance. 

But when it comes to the evil things that may 
happen, the temptation to borrow trouble proves 
too strong to be resisted. " Never cross bridges 
till you come to them " is an excellent motto, 
but its wisdom often fails to have any effect 
upon us; and even though there may be no 
immediate cause for anxiety, the fear of the 
future casts gloom over our souls. 

In the midst of a scene of enjoyment some 
depressing word may be spoken that will turn 
our thoughts to the contemplation of possible 
disaster to some cherished plan or to the failure 
of our hopes. 

In his " Good-natured Man," Oliver Goldsmith 
has a character whom he names Mr. Croaker. 
Whenever Mr. Croaker saw a number of people 
cheerful and happy, he always contrived to throw 
a chill over the circle by wishing, with a ghastly 
air, that they all might be as well that day six 
months. There are many like Mr. Croaker 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 85 

who always have a wet blanket handy, and are 
adepts at its use. In their presence we need to 
have a pair of rose-colored glasses ready for 
use; the rose-colored glasses of hope and faith; 
such hope and faith in the righteousness and 
justice of God as Job had, and which was ex- 
pressed in immortal lines by Whittier when he 
said: 

" I know not where His islands lift 
Their fronded palms in air; 
I only know I cannot drift 
Beyond His love and care." 

Wofries, like weeds, grow rankest in neglected 
places; and the mind is like a garden in that 
flowers must be cultivated, while the weeds 
spring up abundantly when the gardener simply 
fails to pull them up. Therefore if the beautiful 
and helpful thoughts which brighten life are to 
abound they must be cultivated, and the weeds 
called fear and worry must be destroyed so soon 
as they show their heads. 

When thoughts of disaster are present in the 
mind they not only worry the man who lets them 
grow, but they tend to produce the very ills he 
dreads. Dr. Whipple, an authority in mental dis- 
orders, declares that " it is an established scien- 



ae HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

tific fact that an idea formed in the mind may be 
transferred to other minds. Worry creates men- 
tal images which when formed project themselves 
into other minds, and put in operation the most 
powerful forces of life for the speedy destruction 
of one's hopes and desires." 

It is true that we know as yet but little 
about the laws of thought transference; but 
what little we do know teaches us to believe 
that Dr. Whipple's statement is well within the 
bounds of reason. 

To cure ourselves of the habit of worrying 
there is no remedy so effective as that of driv- 
ing out the worry-thought by planting the 
thoughts of courage and of cheer. For worry 
is a danger signal warning us that we are either 
not doing work enough, or else that what work 
we are doing is being done the wrong way. In 
the latter case a change of method will often ef- 
fect a cure. Go to the business office by a new 
route; walk instead of ride; take a holiday 
oftener, a short one frequently instead of a 
long one only once a year. In the former case, 
fill the mind by taking on more of the burden 
of life. For it is worry that kills and not work, 
and the busiest people are the happiest. 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 87 
What better can we do then, than to 

" Build a little fence of trust 

Around to-day; 
Fill the space with loving deeds, 

And therein stay. 
Look not o'er the sheltering bars 

Upon to-morrow; 
God will help thee bear what comes 

Of joy or sorrow." 



IX 
SELFISHNESS 

THE old Quaker said to his wife, " Every-, 
body is queer except thee and me, and 
thee is a little queer," which is only a 
picturesque way of saying that all of us like to 
have our way regardless of consequences to other 
people, and with a fatuous disregard for the 
effect of selfishness upon ourselves. 

For there is no other one thing, or no series of 
things comprised under some other single name, 
that so hinders happiness as does selfishness. 

The word selfishness is a modern word; not 
so new as the words automobile, and aeroplane, 
and marconigram, but not so old as the word 
gravitation; and that word only dates back to 
the days immediately following the portentous 
discovery by Sir Isaac Newton less than two 
hundred and fifty years ago. 

In the Bible the word selfishness does not 
occur; and Dante did not know it else he would 
have used it to describe a circle in his vision of 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 89 

Hell. Shakespeare never heard the word, nor 
did Bacon. It appears suddenly in the literature 
of modern times as a term to describe a state of 
existence as well known as the name for it was 
unknown. 

For while it is true that the Bible does not use 
the word it describes people who are " lovers of 
their own selves " ; and Jesus declares that the 
final judgment is to hinge upon the matter of 
doing or not doing the deeds that we characterize 
to-day as selfish or unselfish. 

Selfishness has always been in our nature as 
gravitation was always in the universe; but it 
took the enlightened thought of modern times 
to find a name for them both. What other word 
so well describes the attitude of the priest and 
the Levite toward the man left by thieves to die 
by the side of the Jericho road, as the word sel- 
fishness? The Good Samaritan is the type of 
that charity of thought and deed which we call 
unselfish; but selfishness covers the men who 
pass by on the other side as a coat of mail 
through which no call for pity could pierce and 
reach their hearts. 

The thing we mean when we use the word 
selfishness is illustrated by the story of a well 



90 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

known merchant to whom an old time school 
friend came in great distress. As the great man 
listened to the sorrowful tale of illness and mis- 
fortune his eyes filled with tears, his hand pressed 
an electric button on his desk, and as in reponse 
to his ringing of the bell an attendant entered 
the room he said, " John, throw this man out ; 
he *s breaking my heart." 

Unwillingness to be distressed is a form of sel- 
fishness that needs no argument to reveal its 
ugliness; but it may perhaps need a word of 
warning as to its dangers. For let us suppose 
a man about to go to bed in a hotel. Suddenly 
he hears a cry from across the hall, " Help ! 
Help!" It sounds like the cry of some one in 
terror and despair. So the man says to himself, 
" Evidently there is trouble over there." And 
he wraps a blanket about him so as not to catch 
cold while he rushes across the room, seizes the 
bureau and rolls it in front of his door, piles 
chairs up on top for a barricade, rolls his 
bed up against the bureau, turns out the 
light and jumps under the covers to be safe 
from harm. 

Simply a selfish man who didn't purpose to 
get himself into any trouble he could avoid; a 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 91 

very praiseworthy purpose as a rule; but in this 
instance with the result that he gets himself 
depised by all decent people who get to hear of 
his conduct ; which does n't add to his happi- 
ness no matter from what dangers he may have 
saved his skin; and which detracts from the 
happiness of other people by so much as all of 
us must feel ashamed when selfishness freezes 
up impulses that make for heroism and turn 
men into monsters who " love only their own 
selves." 

The normal self is related to human life as 
water is related to fields made fertile by its 
presence. There are hearts all around us which 
become fruitful with all the graces of life when 
our thoughts and deeds reach their needs. 

Imagine, however, a field prepared for irriga- 
tion, into which no water can come because 
what water there was has been frozen. Ice can- 
not flow any more than hearts can flow until 
melted by proper processes. Then imagine the 
same field still not irrigated because what water 
there was has been condensed into steam and 
has gone up into the clouds; and you have a 
picture of what happens to hearts that need 
your help when you become overheated by 



92 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

sentimentalities and let your kindly intentions 
become cloud castles in the air. 

For there is a selfishness that appears to be 
as beautiful as the clouds at sunset; it attracts 
admiration and even wins love, only to lead 
friends and lovers into the darkness of disap- 
pointed hopes and the night of broken faith. 

The ugly kind of selfishness, the icy sort of 
indifference, is evil enough; but its evil is suf- 
fered largely by the evil doer. It means that 
he is so self-centered as to be unable to keep 
step with the army of humanity as it advances 
toward its goal. He thinks so much about him- 
self and the effect of things upon himself that 
he is like the centipede who 

" was happy quite, 
Until the frog, for fun, 
Said * Pray, which leg comes after which?' 
Which wrought his mind to such a pitch 
He lay distracted in a ditch, 
Considering hoTV to run." 

The man who thinks always of his own com- 
fort and is like ice, for fear, if he melts, the 
flow of his soul may carry off with it some of 
his money or some of his cherished ease, is so 
well understood as to work but little harm 
except to himself. 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 93 

The more dangerous form of selfishness is the 
one Hawthorne had in mind when he wrote the 
sentence, " Selfishness is one of the qualities apt 
to inspire love." 

It sounds at first as though the distinguished 
novelist was trying to be smart at the expense 
of truth. But when memory stirs up our recol- 
lection of past experiences we become convinced 
that some of the most engaging rascals known 
are the most selfish. Benvenuto Cellini, for in- 
stance; or if you want the consummate expres- 
sion by a literary artist of the type of selfishness 
to which Hawthorne referred, take George Eliot's 
Tito in her story of " Romola.'' 

Tito's peculiar attractiveness is the result of 
his form of selfishness. The novelist does not 
tell us that he is selfish, but she makes us feel 
his character. It develops so surely under her 
skilful hand, and so slowly, that we feel his 
charm as Romola did without fearing his 
cruelty, or without even suspecting him capable 
of cruelty. All he asked was to have sunshine 
and joy. He absorbed pleasure as a sponge 
absorbs water, and whenever another life 
touched his, he exuded pleasure as water drops 
from a saturated sponge. He was glad to dif- 



94 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

fuse delight because it made his surroundings 
delightful. From the hardships of life he fled; 
from the burdens that would have made him 
walk soberly, sedately, steadily, he deliberately 
turned away. 

Whenever such a man crosses the path of a 
woman like Romola the woman is attracted. 
She admires the vivacity, the lightness of spirit, 
the entertaining qualities that sparkle in the 
sunshine; and she loves the care-free heart. 
Such a man rests her and lulls her fears to 
sleep. 

And then the tragedy comes, when the selfish- 
ness that expressed itself in beautiful manners, 
and attractive speech, and winsome joyousness, 
being suddenly brought to bay, discloses itself 
as unspeakably loathsome, meriting the utmost 
contempt of men. 

That is the kind of selfishness which is the 
most dangerous because the very qualities that 
make it dangerous are so lovable. It is the 
kind of selfishness that indulges in generosity 
at the expense of justice, for it is so much 
easier to be generous than it is to be just; 
especially with other people's property. 

But generosity without justice is sentimen- 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 95 

tality; the dissipation of water that ought to 
make fields fruitful, into clouds of steam that 
float beautifully in the sunshine giving much 
promise and but little performance of benefit 
to life. 

It is wonderfully attractive to witness the 
generosity even of some big-hearted thief who 
prides himself upon his benevolence. He basks 
in the popularity won by his open-handed gifts 
to dependents and followers and friends. It af- 
fords him immense satisfaction to dress his wife 
and children in fine raiment and to hear their 
praise of him. His self-love is fed by the adula- 
tion of those whom he has taught to look upon 
him as the source of every blessing. 

Political life abounds with selfish rascality of 
this type; men who steal from the public funds 
to provide for the private needs of their friends; 
men who rob the city to pose before a selected 
few as benefactors of their kind. And there is 
so much that is lovable about the generosity of 
these modern Robin Hoods that we forget the 
selfishness involved until the big-hearted thief is 
brought to bay. It may happen that for some 
reason the public till or the corporation strong box 
is closed to him and his prestige is in danger. 



96 HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 

Then to prop up his pose as a benefactor of 
men, he will rob widows and orphans, he will 
cheat his acquaintances, and defraud his asso- 
ciates, in order that he may get money with 
which to provide for the needs of those whose 
praise of him is as the breath of his life. 

It does not sound so attractive to say, 
** First just and then generous," as it does to 
reverse the saying. But the only man who has 
a right to be generous is he who has first been 
just. 

It is as though a man should feel sorry on a 
very cold day for all the people in town who 
could n't afford to have comfortable fires to 
warm them. So he opens all the doors and 
windows of his home and allows the heat from 
his furnace to attempt the task of warming up 
all outdoors. 

The man not only fails to warm the poor 
people for whom his sympathies are aroused, 
but he also fails to keep his own family warm. 
First he must be just and provide for his own, 
or else, as the Bible says, he is worse than 
an infidel. Afterwards he may be as generous 
as justice will allow. 

For generosity is a luxury that speedily bank- 



HINDRANCES TO HAPPINESS 97 

rupts the man who practices it apart from justice. 
And justice apart from generosity is mere for- 
malism which speedily dries up the springs of 
human feeling. 

There are, therefore, these two extremes of 
selfishness, expressed on the one hand by the 
cold and ice-bound justice that never expands 
in generous deeds; and on the other hand by 
the generosity based upon sentimentality which 
can end only in shattered dreams. 

Between these extremes we must find the 
middle road that we may escape the unhap- 
piness caused either by a calculating indiffer- 
ence to, or an uncalculating interest in, the 
affairs of men. 



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